Battle of Canyon de Chelly
part of the Navajo Wars (1864)
The Battle of Canyon de Chelly was fought in 1864 as part of the Navajo Wars. It was a successful operation for the United States Army which precipitated the Long Walk and was the final major military engagement between the Navajo and the Americans. The battle ended with the fall of the main Navajo settlements of Canyon de Chelly in present-day northern Arizona.
Background
By the time of the American Civil War the Navajo was the largest nation in the Southwest and one of the largest remaining Native American nations within the United States. Colonel Christopher H. "Kit" Carson had been waging a successful campaign against the Navajos employing a scorched earth policy, destroying homes, food and supplies. It was Carson's policy to capture the Navajo instead of killing them. However, by November 1863 Carson had only sent 200 people on to the reservation at Bosque Redondo. Brigadier General James H. Carleton ordered Carson into the Navajo stronghold in Canyon de Chelly. The canyon had been explored once before in 1858 by Colonel Dixon S. Miles. Miles had recommended no command should re-enter it.
The public source identifies “Battle of Canyon de Chelly” as part of the Navajo Wars (1864). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Battle, Canyon and Chelly.
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This entry incorporates text from “Battle of Canyon de Chelly” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.